Hot topics dominate WEF agenda
THE ORGANISERS of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, want attendees to focus on the challenges of the future: The theme of this year’s annual meeting is Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a catch-all rubric that describes advances in technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics. The problems of the here-and-now, though, are likely to be a more popular topic of discussion.
Among the assembled politicians, chief executives, and financiers will be many key players in simmering global crises, including China’s stock market meltdown, the emerging cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Russia’s economic slump.
They’ll be meeting a couple of weeks after billionaire George Soros, a Davos stalwart, warned that the China-induced turmoil in financial markets is starting to remind him of “the crisis we had in 2008”. Others are also voicing concerns. “This is a very stressful time,” says John Veihmeyer, the global chairman of consulting firm KPMG.
Undoubtedly one of the most in-demand guests at this year’s forum, which runs from January 20 to 23, will be Fang Xinghai, the vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, who has the unenviable task of supervising the gyrating stock markets of the world’s second-largest economy.
Russia, another country looking to keep the confidence of international investors, is also well represented.